10/02/15 — Farm

Photo by Scott David Gordon

From the Farmer's Perspective: Light at the End of the Tunnel

Just like that, October is here! September was a wild month on the farm and time definitely flew. Fall is one of our two peak season for vegetable growing in central Texas, and because of this, we've just completed what might be the busiest month we'll have all year making sure our fields are full for this bountiful season. I know I say it all the time, but I'm always so amazed and grateful for our hard-working teams here at the farm who are working tirelessly to feed our Texas community. I am finally feeling like the mad rush of Fall planting is slowing down just a little bit, and so we are turning our attention to some new projects.

Photo by Scott David Gordon

I want to thank all of the smiling and dedicated volunteers who came out during the month of September to help our greenhouse staff with their astronomical load. If you remember, last year we built out 5 new greenhouses at our Garfield farm in order to meet our growing needs for organic vegetable starts. These greenhouses are now full to bursting - Brandon and Adrienne, alongside our volunteers, have been seeding 7 days a week for the last month and their work has really paid off. Just this week we planted out over 10,000 red cabbage transplants - our transplanting crew has also been working nonstop! We were happy to see so many community members come out for our weekend volunteer days during the month of September, and we hope to offer this opportunity again in the future (we need volunteers for our fall Potluck - more details below!).

Photo by Scott David Gordon

As the fields finally fill up and the weather starts to cool down, it's almost time to celebrate the season at our Fall Harvest Hustle and Potluck on October 24th! The entire staff at JBG has been putting a lot of energy towards making this the best event yet. Haven't decided whether or not you'll make it? Let me tell you why this is an event you won't want to miss. First, this is the best opportunity to see where you food is grown and the best season to see it, plus we've got a few great options for doing so! Rogue Running is sponsoring our Harvest Hustle 5k, a scenic and active farm-tour at our beautiful Garfield farm along the Colorado River. We also have a 1-mile Kid's Fun Run which is sure to be a blast. This fall, we're bringing back the community Potluck, which is always a great showcase of our community's incredible cooking skills and definitely not to be missed. This week we confirmed our bands as well - you'll be dining and dancing to the tunes of local talent Carson McHone, the Bottom Dollar String Band, and The Parish Festival!

If you've ever thrown a party before, you know it's always easier to plan with a head count - we hope you'll RSVP by getting your Hoedown ticket today!

We're also seeking volunteers to help make this the best Hoedown yet. Email us at volunteer@jbgorganic.com to reserve a spot - we'll say thanks with a free event ticket and awesome volunteer t-shirt!

Join us for the Harvest Hustle and Potluck on October 24th - bring the kiddos! Photo by Scott David Gordon

I have one other project I wanted to tell you about this week - JBG's first ever Farm-to-Gym program! Austin has such an incredible health and fitness community, and through Farm-to-Gym we're excited to partner with studios around town to make your local, organic veggie pickups even easier! JBG is offering some great promotions to our Farm-to-Gym partners that we hope you'll take advantage of - and we're not just biased to gyms either. We think that local, organic food is great for yogis, dancers, karate students, bikers, and Cross-Fitters too. Want to see if your gym is participating, or interested in becoming a partner? Email heydon@jbgorganic.com for more information.

As you can see, there's been no shortage of work at JBG this week. As things start to slow down just a little, and we see the light at the end of the tunnel of fall field preparations, I'm looking forward to even more new projects this fall. Our shade structure should be completed soon, so keep your eyes peeled for more nursery stock from JBG this spring - we loved growing figs, grapes, and pomegranates last year, both for our farm and for your gardens as well. What would you like to see us grow next year? Olive trees? Peaches? We'd love it if you would let us know in the comments.

10/06/15 — Scott

10/06/15 — Farm

By Megan Winfrey

Vegetable Dyeing

I'm mixing it up this week, ya'll. Instead of a recipe, I'm going to share my maiden voyage into plant dyeing. Natural dyeing has really fascinated me lately, mostly in part to the rad lady behind Folk Fibers, (www.folkfibers.com) who I started following on Instagram earlier this year. [editor's note: Maura from Folk Fibers used to manage our greenhouse here at JBG! She also used the originial backyard garden as an indigo plot in 2012.] She dyes the natural fabrics for her gorgeous quilts using plant, seed, and insect matter, and she yields the most vibrant array of colors you can imagine. Now, me? I smear beets over my lips every time I eat them and one time, I haphazardly threw my baby's white onesie into the beet water hoping it would turn an earthy magenta. Well, every ounce of color washed out immediately and then I knew, I had to do a little research and try again.

After googling around, I found out that a pre-bath in a vinegar/water mixture was necessary to set the dye, and to only use twice as much water as plant matter.

Well, my family has to eat, so I didn't have much plant matter left over to work with after planning the week's meals. I used probably 2 cups worth for each dye bath. Next time, I will save plant scraps for a few weeks and make a much more potent dye.

The first dye consisted of a bunch of papalo and the stems of a bunch of chard.

The second dye was the fresh skins of 2 purple eggplants. The third dye was a bunch of beets and their greens. The first step was to gather the pieces I wanted to dye (some onesies and cotton rags) and put them into a large pot with a 4 to 1 ratio of water to distilled vinegar. Then, I prepared the plant matter. For each dye, I chopped all of the plant and vegetable matter into small chunks, added twice as much water as plant matter.

At this point, I have 4 pots going. One for fixing the pieces I wanted to dye and three different dye pots - perfect for a 4 burner stove.

I brought each pot to a boil, then lowered to a simmer for one hour.

Once everything had simmered for an hour, I strained the dyes back into their pots, squeezed the excess liquid out of the onesies and rags, and divided them evenly among the dyes. I let everything sit overnight, hoping to achieve a deeper color

To my initial dismay, everything turned out pretty pale. Though the colors are beautiful, I was hoping for a more vibrant outcome. I think that using more plant matter would remedy this, and I can't wait to try again.

I hope y'all enjoy your own adventures in vegetable dyeing, and I'd love to hear how it turns out!

10/08/15 — Farm

We're excited to share a second recipe with you this week! CSA member Miranda Tucker sent us this great recipe to use up some of those hot peppers you've been seeing in your CSA shares. We love seeing what our members are doing with their JBG veggies - feel free to drop us a line at farm@jbgorganic.com if you've cooked up something you'd like to share. Thanks Miranda!

Hot Pepper Scones by Miranda Tucker

The recipe is based on the Jalapeno Scones in Leanne Brown's Good and Cheap cookbook (a great resource by the way!), but I made a few small changes (mostly adding way more peppers and subbing in some cornmeal - I think it adds nice texture and flavor.).

3-6 peppers, diced (any type works here - whatever's in the CSA, fresh or roasted! I remove the seeds but leave the membranes for a bit of heat, but prepare according to your preferred level of spicy.)

1/2 cup half and half (milk would work just as well)

3 eggs

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and 1 t salt.

Use a cheese grater to grate the butter into the dry ingredients, then mix. (I use my hands.) You want to still have roughly pea-size clumps of butter in the mix. (Don't stress though; this recipe is pretty forgiving. I haven't had a bad batch yet!)

Mix in the diced peppers and cheese.

I get a little fancy with the eggs. If you want to keep it simple, just beat two eggs for the batter and save one egg for the eggwash at the end; skip to #5. What I do: Separate out two of the egg yolks, reserving the whites for the eggwash at the end. Beat the two egg yolks together with the third egg.

Mix your eggs for the dough and 1/2 cup half and half into the batter with your hands. Don't worry if it's a little shaggy; that's fine.

Dust a clean counter top or cutting board with flour. Plop your dough onto that and use your hands to press it into a circle about 1.5 inches thick. Cut your dough into 6 pieces like a small pizza.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put your scones on the baking sheet.

Beat the egg (or egg whites) you reserved for your eggwash thoroughly. Brush onto scones. (A pastry brush would probably help here. I've just been using my hands!) Sprinkle scones with salt and pepper to taste.

Bake scones at 400 F for 25 minutes.

This recipe is really easy, and it goes great with nearly anything. In a pinch, one of these isn't a bad on-the-go breakfast even by itself. The pile of greens on the side are collards that I cooked to go with the scones. The greens themselves were good, and dipping the scones in the "juice" from the greens was DELICIOUS. I'm probably going to make the same thing again next week with the braising mix that's coming in next week's CSA.

10/09/15 — Farm

Montana and Brandon. Photo by Scott David Gordon

This week we had some respite from the heat with a few cool and cloudy days at the farm. We took advantage of the great weather and this week planted our Hergotz farm in cabbage and cauliflower! Things are looking really great at both farms - Garfield is greener than ever, and we're looking forward to showing you the bountiful and full fields at our upcoming Potluck and Harvest Hustle 5k on October 24th!

The transplant crew preparing for a busy morning. Photo by Scott David Gordon

A sea of fresh baby arugula. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Cabbage and cauliflower are looking top notch! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Keep your eyes peeled at markets for some savoy cabbage soon. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Broccoli. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We still have loads of beautiful pickling cukes available. Photo by Scott David Gordon

10/09/15 — Farm

The first of the fall carrots are here! Photo by Scott David Gordon

We know that our CSA members love the bounty of local, organic veggies they receive in their shares every week. But we also know that even the most inspired home chefs can have trouble figuring out how to cook with another weeks worth of eggplant - we get it! Eating locally and seasonally is a joy, but comes with it's own set of challenges as well. This week, we asked our staff, family, and friends (and scoured Brenton's enormous cookbook collection!) to help us round up a list of favorite cookbooks to help tackle your weekly share of JBG veggies.

What cookbook list would be complete without this perennial classic? Hailed by the New York Public Library as one of the 150 most influential books of the 20th century, and described by Julia Child as “a fundamental resource for any American cook,” Joy of Cooking is a resource for everything from knife skills, to basic cooking techniques, to canning and pickling, and recipes for the grill, oven, microwave and more! This was Brenton's first cookbook in college, and the start of his collection.

2. From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce, by FairShare CSA Coalition

Created by CSA members, for CSA members, From Asparagus to Zucchinibreaks it down by vegetable. This cookbook offers storage tips, nutritional information, and a huge variety of recipes for even the strangest and most unfamiliar of CSA vegetables.

3. The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen

Now in it's 41st year of publication, Moosewood is an absolute favorite database for vegetarian recipes, inspired by the changing seasonal menu of the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, NY. Mollie Katzen hand wrote and illustrated every recipe in this book, making it a handmade treasure for your kitchen (the kiddos love it too!). Moosewood has a number of other great, vegetarian cookbooks not to be missed.

4. Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables, by John Peterson

Farmer John, of Angelic Organics, created this cookbook specifically for his CSA program in Illinois. As you might imagine, the recipes are seasonal and vegetable based, perfectly fitting for a weekly CSA share, and Farmer John makes this cookbook special by adding in stories from the farm, letters from CSA members, and more. We like your pitchfork and boa, John.

5. Good and Cheap, by Leanne Brown

Ever heard someone say that eating organically is too expensive? Leanne Brown could certainly prove them wrong with this book. Written to accommodate the budget of someone living on SNAP benefits (about $4 per day), this cookbook has a ton of ideas for cooking healthy and economic meals, using lots of vegetables and basic pantry staples - plus, offers suggestions for ingredient substitutes, to help take down that glut of zucchini! For every book purchased, a book is donated to a low-income household, but you can also download the cookbook for free in PDF format. This week's CSA member-submitted recipe came from this book!

6. Eating in Season: Recipes from Boggy Creek Farm by Carol Ann Sayle

This one is about as hyper-local and seasonal as it gets, from the folks at Boggy Creek right here in Austin! Brenton added this one to his collection when he started the backyard garden and was visiting Boggy Creek to get garden ideas. Carol Ann does a great job creating fuss-free recipes perfectly conducive to our growing seasons here in central Texas.

7.Jerusalem: A Cookbook, by Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi

This cookbook is the favorite of Ada, our office manager: "Wonderful, simple approaches to Mediterranean inspired food, which coincidentally is largely plant based, and super useful for considering seasonal veggies in a new and fresh way. Great when you need inspiration for what to do with more eggplant that often employs flavors that aren't intuitive to the average American-home cook. Not to mention the beautiful photographs and narrative on every page!"

8. Chez Panisse Vegetables, by Alice Waters

Alice Waters of the famed Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard Project, believes that "cooking should be based on the finest and freshest seasonal ingredients that are produced sustainably and locally." This cookbook, with it's beautiful linotypes of veggies, has load of vegetable specific information, and recommendations from the restaurant with each dish. Perfect for impressing dinner guests with recipes from Michelin Star chefs.

Now it's your turn, CSA members -- we want to know what cookbooks you turn to when your JBG box shows up every week. Leave us your favorite in the comments!

10/13/15 — Farm

By Megan Winfrey

Ahhh, wedding season. That glorious time when every weekend is booked with some wedding-related-event, you're pretty sure that you've been hungover since September 1st, and your stomach is kinda funky from all the restaurant and catered food. It's times like these that I especially love the pre-made breakfast. Something healthy and tasty that you can bring along and pop in the oven or microwave because let's face it, we'd all rather stay in bed than cook breakfast or volunteer for the taco run.

With that in mind, I made these super easy egg muffins in preparation for two of my very dear friend's wedding last weekend. I made a few dozen figuring they'd probably all get eaten by our heathen friends, and they sure did...even if some were eaten cold at 4 in the morning.

Loaded Egg Muffins

*the beauty of this recipe is that it is easy to modify. Substitute any all and all JBG vegetables, add fresh herbs, bacon or sausage if desired. Yields 1 dozen.

Ingredients:

9 eggs

1/2 cup whole milk

1 cup shredded cheese

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

5 sweet peppers, diced

1 onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, diced

olive oil or paper cupcake cups

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350ºF

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the sweet potatoes and reduce to a soft bubble. Cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Heat 2 tbs. olive oil in a skillet over medium low. Add the peppers and onion and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 1-2 minutes.

Crack the eggs into a bowl, add the milk and beat until just mixed. Over beating the eggs will result in dense muffins instead of nice, fluffy muffins.

Prepare your muffin tin by oiling each cup or lining with a cupcake cup. Start with a layer of sweet potatoes in each cup, creating a nice even base. Then, a layer of cheese. Then, a layer of cooked vegetables. Pour the egg mixture into each cup so that it is 2/3 full. Put another layer of cheese right on top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden on top. Let cool for 10 minutes before removing the egg muffins from the pan.

Eat immediately or let cool and refrigerate for later. Good in the fridge for about a week.

10/14/15 — Farm

You may or may not know one of JBG's favorite drivers, Lucas, but we bet you've seen him around town. Lucas has driven CSA boxes, wholesale trucks, and delivery routes all over the state for us! We recently found out that Lucas also has quite the artistic streak, and we are excited to announce that he is going to be drawing a weekly farm cartoon for us to get you through your Wednesdays. Without further ado, our first hump-day farm-toon:

10/16/15 — Farm

The Show and Tellers at the Spring Potluck. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Here at JBG, we've got a special spot in our hearts for local Texas musicians, and we try to support their talent whenever we can! Whether it be outfitting local favorites like Shakey Graves with JBG hats for the road, sending home the musicians at HOPE Farmer's Market with lots of veggies, or filling our farm events with local talent, our staff considers supporting local music as important as supporting local food! When you buy tickets for next Saturday's Potluck and Harvest Hustle, know that your dollars are going primarily to support Austin's musical community by paying fair prices to these artists. This week we're featuring some of their talent below!

You may remember seeing Silas Lowe and his band perform at the Spring 2014 Potluck, and we are so excited to have him back for another round of Americana goodness! Our friend Carson McHone had to change her plans last minute, and we are so grateful that Silas was able to clear his schedule to play for us! Check out his recent feature on Longhorn Network:

The Bottom Dollar String Band is a local favorite, and if you haven't seen them yet you better get a ticket fast! This Hill Country bluegrass group spent their summer touring in Colorado, and we're happy to have them back to celebrate fall in Austin.

Finally, The Parish Festival is a group originally from Davenport, IA. The JBG team is stoked that this talented group now calls Austin home, though, so that we can have them perform at the farm! From their Twitter page, "If Django was born in Arkansas and had a baby with Rilo Kiley, that baby would be us."

10/16/15 — Farm

We brought the tractor to Hergotz to finish planting this week. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Another week at the farm gone by, without any signs of fall weather, or things slowing down. We are still super busy, and it feels like our transplanter hasn't been out of use for a minute these last few months. Hergotz is now all planted in broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower with the rest of the property in cover crop, while at Garfield we've been seeding beets and carrots and transplanting kale, collards, parsley, and more broccoli. With this persistent heat, I can tell that our crews are starting to feel a little burnt out (literally, it's hot out there!), but I know that the end of the planting frenzy is in sight, and with the promise of a cool front this weekend I think we all see respite on its way. I really value everyone's never ending drive and the hard work the team has been putting in this fall. It is really paying off and the fields look better than I have ever seen them!

Things are really growing fast out there (although we would love it if this cool and wet fall we were promised would arrive already) and the farm is looking absolutely beautiful right now. This season is one of the absolutely BEST times to plan a visit to your local farm! While we don't have the hat and scarf weather you see in cooler parts of the country, we do have two events in the next two weeks to share our beautiful fall fields with you.

A recent glimpse of JBG Denton!

This Sunday, October 18th, I'm excited to be going up to the JBG Denton farm to have dinner with our good friends from Outstanding in the Field! You may remember back in 2011 and 2012, we hosted this traveling supper club here at our Hergotz Farm. Our Denton farm manager Ryan now has the opportunity to share his plot and our JBG bounty as Outstanding hosts a dinner with Dallas chef extraordinaire Matt McAllister from FT33! This year's dinner is sold out, and I really hope to meet some of our CSA customers at the event.

Our second event is one you've no doubt heard about - we are only ONE WEEK away from JBG's annual Fall Potluck and 5k Harvest Hustle! If you haven't bought your tickets yet for the event next Saturday, October 24th, now is the time to do so! This week has been a busy one, finalizing our plans for the big celebration, and I wanted to share a few of the projects we've been working on.

Come tour our fields at the Harvest Hustle next weekend! Photo by Scott David Gordon

This year's Harvest Hustle course is absolutely gorgeous. Tour our 200 acre organic farm on the Colorado River, stopping to see your Artichokes, Basil, Beets, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Eggplants, Flowers, Garlic, Green Beans, Onions, Okra, Squash, Tomatoes, Turnips and more! (trust me, this isn't even close to the full list) growing along the way! This 5k Fun Run is great for folks of all ages and athletic levels. While we have a very active community and expect to see some speed demons racing the course, we also have plenty of individuals and families who take their time, and maybe even walk the 5k just to get a rounded tour of JBG. Your Harvest Hustle ticketincludes access to the race course, admission to our Potluck, and a vintage inspired racing t-shirt to remember the event! Bring your kids on the 5k, or sign them up for our 1-mile Kid's Fun Run for an abbreviated tour of the fields!

I have a really great feeling about this year's Potluck. Attendance at the biannual JBG celebrations has grown tremendously since we started hosting them nearly a decade ago, and we're excited to taste what our community has been cooking with our veggies at this Texas-sized potluck. We even posted some cookbook recommendations last week, if you need inspiration. Does anyone know the record for potluck size in Texas? Let us know, if you find out! By bringing a dish to share (with serving utensils, please!), you receive a discount on your admission to the celebration - only $5 for adults! Kids are admitted free to the event either way.

We're bringing back the sand pile for our Fall Potluck. Photo by Scott David Gordon

In addition to wide open spaces to run, there will be plenty to do for the kids. We're getting another full dump truck load of sand for our famous (infamous?) sand pile! This was definitely a favorite feature in the Spring and we're excited to let the kiddos play on the sand pile again this fall. JBG's own Kate Murray has been working hard on our much-loved kid's activity corner for the event. She'll will be disguised as a pollinator, and lead your little ones through an educational game to learn about the process of pollination. Of course, given the Halloween-spirit, there will be light costuming involved for each role (that the kids make themselves!) followed by a tag-like game of pollinators and plants! Teach your kids about the science behind farming, and enjoy your food and drink while watching your little one run some of that energy out!

Finally, we've had to change our band schedule around just a little bit, but the musical lineup is still completely local and completely awesome. We're featuring our potluck bands in a second blog post this week if you are looking for a preview of the fun.

10/20/15 — Farm

By Megan Winfrey

Looking for easy, non-cheesy ways to incorporate a Halloween theme into your October menu? Me, too. Our daughter isn't old enough to get it, so I'm not quite ready for googly eyes and candy corn, but I do like the idea of cooking with a subtle spooky vibe this month. After all, I do take Halloween quite seriously. So far this month we've watched Sleepy Hollow, Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Casper, The Aadams Family, Halloween Resurrection, and Interview with the Vampire to name a few. Last night, it was Idle Hands and the recipe below, which my husband thought was clever and cute. SCORE.

Witch's Fingers

1 bag green beans, washed and trimmed

1 bunch of radishes, trimmed and sliced long ways

2 cloves of garlic, diced

2 tbs. olive oil

1 tsp. chile powder

1 tbs. honey

1/4 cup parsley

chopped salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the green beans and blanch for 2-3 minutes, until just tender. Immediately strain and dunk the green beans in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the green beans, radishes, and garlic. Cook until the vegetables start to wilt, about 5 minutes.

Using tongs, remove the green beans from the skillet and transfer them to a bowl. Add the chile powder and honey and toss to coat. Then, lay them out in an even layer on a serving platter. On one end of the green beans, make space for the radishes. Scoop the radishes onto the platter and arrange them to look like finger nails coming off of the green bean "fingers."

I made mine rather sloppy, to look like I'd just collected these fresh witch fingers, cooked 'em up quick and threw them on the plate - and maybe some fingernails came loose in the process. Not super obvious, of course, but still a fun way to incorporate Halloween into your meal. Enjoy!

10/21/15 — Farm

10/22/15 — Farm

We've got a LOT of rain in the forecast this weekend. While we are grateful for the moisture in our soils, 4+ inches of rain was going to make our party locale this weekend a muddy mess! So, we've decided to postpone the JBG Potluck and Harvest Hustle 5k to Saturday, November 14th.

We hope this is good news for everyone who was on the fence about joining the race and festivities. Now you have an extra 3 weeks to train, and/or work on your potluck dish!

10/23/15 — Farm

Who likes collards? Photo by Scott David Gordon

It's been a beautiful week at the farm, and it feels as though we are in a good spot for the rainy weather forecasted for this weekend. Assistant Farm Manager Jason puts it nicely: "I don't look forward to a flood, but this rain will provide enough relief to step back a moment and look at what we accomplished. We will have the opportunity to assess our successes and failures as a team. It also allows us a little time to organize the messes that were created in the wake of the planting, irrigating, and harvest bustle." We've also brought out the pumps in anticipation of what was lovingly dubbed, "Lake JBG" during the spring flooding. Scott David Gordon captured some great snapshots of life at the farm this week, and we hope you'll enjoy!

Dandelion greens are a favorite right now. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Dandelion green harvest. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Alfonso bunching dandelion greens. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Moving irrigation lines. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Photo by Scott David Gordon

Photo by Scott David Gordon

Scott captures some early morning transplanting. Photo by Scott David Gordon

A baby bok choy. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Israel harvesting kale. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Our farmer ladies Olbein, Sindy and Angelica riding along with the harvest. Photo by Scott David Gordon

10/23/15 — Farm

Doug washing beets at our packing shed. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Well, the weather in Texas is as wild as ever this week. We are currently preparing for a slow moving band of heavy rainfall over the next few days, with the potential to drop up to 7" of rain at our farm! It's hard to prepare for a deluge like this one, but we will be grateful to see some moisture after months of dry weather (which followed months of the wettest weather we'd ever seen!). Luckily, most all of our crops are already in the ground, so we will welcome the moisture, although we're anticipating that the packing crews will have a lot more washing to do next week than usual.

Our Potluck and Harvest Hustle scheduled for this weekend has been postponed, since the party grounds are going to be quite the mud pit this weekend. We hope you will join us on Saturday, November 14th for the rescheduled JBG Potluck and Harvest Hustle. Tickets are currently still available at http://www.jbgorganic.com/hoedown. I think that after this rain the farm is going to really be thriving, and I can't wait to see you there!

We'll see you on November 14th! Photo by Scott David Gordon

I hope that the rain doesn't stop you from eating locally this weekend. Saturday, October 24th is national Food Day, a country-wide celebration of heathy eating and improving our local food systems! According to Foodday.org, "The typical American diet is contributing to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. Those problems cost Americans more than $150 billion per year ... Eating Real can save your own health and put our food system on a more humane, sustainable path. With America’s resources, there’s no excuse for hunger, low wages for food and farm workers, or inhumane conditions for farm animals." We can get on board with that mission!

Photo by Scott David Gordon

I really encourage you to take this message to heart by stopping by one of our weekend farmer's markets and doing your part to ensure a viable local food system. Your participation is necessary to keep your local farmers markets running. We harvest, wash, and pack produce every single week, and send staff to markets RAIN or SHINE to ensure that local organic food is available to our Austin community. This takes a lot of time and money, and so we're asking YOU, as the consumer, to show your support for Austin farmers and food producers by also showing up, rain or shine, and voting with your food dollars. A happy Food Day to everyone in the JBG community! What are you cooking up this weekend to celebrate?

10/27/15 — Farm

By Megan Winfrey

I think we can all agree that our CSA boxes have been exceptional lately! I get the medium box, and lately I've been feeling like Mary Poppins with her magic tapestry bag, except I'm pulling out delicious veggies instead of mirrors and coat racks. That being said, this weeks recipe is super simple and only involves 4 ingredients. Although, you can add a whole Marry-Poppins-tapestry-bag's worth of toppings for a versatile snack you won't ever tire of. And the colors here are just perfect for the fall season - a definite but simple way to impress your guests.

Beet and Sweet Potato Crisps

4-5 beet roots, peeled

2-3 sweet potatoes, peeled

4 tbs. olive oil

fresh cracked sea salt

Preheat the oven to 250ºF

Slice the peeled vegetables thinly, using a mandolin or a sharp knife. When using a mandolin, I like to leave a tiny bit of width to the slices, instead of slicing them as thinly as possible. This will leave the chips with a bit of a bite.

Put the sliced beets and sweet potatoes in separate bowls so that the beets don't turn everything pink. Toss each with 2 tbs. olive oil and a good dose of cracked sea salt.

Lay out the chips on separate baking sheets, with 1/4 inch of space in between each one.

Bake for 45 minutes, flip each chip so the the other side will crisp up too, and then bake for another 30-40 minutes.

After removing the chips from the oven and transferring them to a bowl, toss with a bit more sea salt and any other toppings you would like!

10/29/15 — Farm

10/30/15 — Farm

Those rains left us mucking through the farm this week, but after a few days of sunshine, the JBG farm sure looks beautiful. Here's the farm through photographer Scott David Gordon's lens this week. Enjoy!

Collard green harvest. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Carefully packing a harvest of Collards. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We hope you've been enjoying all that Broccoli in your CSA shares! Photo by Scott David Gordon

JBG's famous Homegrown Carrots. Photo by Scott David Gordon

The fall tomato crop is coming along. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Brussels sprouts are just starting to form. Photo by Scott David Gordon

A field of future Caesar salads... Photo by Scott David Gordon

All that rain sure gave our crops a boost. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Salad mix. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Cilantro field. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Harvesting cilantro. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We're bringing lots of cilantro to market this weekend! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Green and savoy cabbage. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Onion transplants ready to go into the fields. Photo by Scott David Gordon

10/30/15 — Farm

There was a bit of confusion at the farm this week when TWO Brenton Johnsons showed up for work! Which one should we take directions from?! Who wore the look better?? From the whole staff at JBG, we wish you a happy and safe Halloween weekend Who will you be dressing as this weekend?

10/30/15 — Farm

Who wants to go canoeing? Photo by Scott David Gordon

From the Farmer's Perspective: The Ups and Downs of Flooding

Huge rainstorms, such as the one we received in Austin last weekend, can be a farmer’s worst enemy or his best friend. Usually, it ends up being a little bit of both. On one end of the spectrum, large rains in our area often result in flooded fields, roads, and other infrastructure. Our silty loam soil is very finely textured, which means it can hold onto lots of nutrients. However, it also means that our soils have the capacity to hold on to lots of water, so tightly that our fields have trouble draining in a situation like last weekend. We can end up with some pretty sizable puddles on the farm, especially when we haven't seen rain in a few months.

"Lake JBG" Photo by Scott David Gordon

What does this mean for us at the farm? Well, this week it meant the return of the infamous “Lake JBG.” We had over 13 inches of water pooling in some parts of our fields! It can be extremely frustrating dealing with this amount of water, as it stops us from being able to direct seed or transplant. Our newest plantings of parsley, onions, rutabaga, spinach and more will have to be delayed by a week, and even relatively simple work like harvesting can be much more difficult. I personally spent the better part of the evening this past Friday and all day Saturday working to get our big pump at the Hergotz farm operating. What I thought would be a simple priming turned into a full day struggle to get our vehicles out of their muddy swimming pool!

Hergotz loading dock on Saturday morning.

..but the fields look beautiful now! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Despite the inconvenient and sometimes frustrating aspects of the rain, it’s clear that we also have a lot to be thankful for. Our soils at JBG come from periodic floods along the Colorado River over the course of the land's history, which have deposited fertile sediments that allow us to grow such great organic veggies! Who can complain about that? I’m working with our soil consultant Steve Diver to write up a more complete article on our soils at JBG and how we keep them full of the nutrients our crops need to grow- stay tuned for this soon.

We are also grateful for a sunny week after the rains - it’s truly a beautiful site to see the abundant life that water can bring to Texas. I hope that all of you have been enjoying how green all of Austin looks this week, I know I have. The crops are absolutely loving the deep watering, and it feels like we are really in the swing of Fall, one of our most abundant seasons on the farm! This is what I like to call the “green smoothie time of year” in Texas. I hope all of our CSA members use the abundance of greens and herbs in their boxes to make a green smoothie or two. Or, check out some of the great local producers in town using our greens for healthy drinks - this week our Wholesale team sent produce to Juice Society, Peoples Rx, and JuJu Juice here in Austin, Juicer Heroes and Revolucion in San Antonio, and Sustain Juicery in Houston!

Dino Kale harvest in morning light. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Aside from just green smoothies, this really is a time of abundance for our CSA members. If you’ve been putting off joining our CSA, now is the time! This really is the best time of year to share in the bounty from JBG, and we’ll be in the swing of things for the next few months with loads of greens and fresh herbs, root veggies, winter squash, and more! We just finished up a brand new brochure for our CSA program, so if you are a shareholder or business interested in helping out your local farm, shoot us an email to farm@jbgorganic.com and we’ll send you a pile of brochures to spread the message about Community Supported Agriculture!